The bachelor’s degree program in language and society (Sprache & Gesellschaft) addresses such issues as how language influences our lives in society and how social interactions influence our language. In addition to modules in linguistics, the program also includes elective modules that explore, for example, the interplay between language and power, communication, space, the individual, and German as a foreign language.

The program is run by the Interdisciplinary Center for European Languages and lends itself to a combination with literary studies and language programs as well as subjects in the social sciences or humanities.

Students interested in the cultural development of human history might be interested in the interdisciplinary master’s degree program in Archaeology of the Ancient World, which is just one of the university’s many master’s programs taught in English. It combines classical archaeology with prehistoric and Near Eastern archaeology. The students immerse themselves in history reaching back 10,000 years and learn the skills necessary to engage intellectually with – and ultimately contribute to – our knowledge about the distant past.

Innovative, Interdisciplinary Programs Offered in English

The master’s degree program in Digital Studies of Ancient Texts, which is taught in English at the Department of History and Cultural Studies, closes the gap between the past and the future. It brings together computational modeling and analysis with text- and language-related topics from Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Egyptology, and Coptology.

Students in the master’s degree program on Global East Asia acquire a multilayered and interdisciplinary perspective on Japan, Korea, and China. Also taught in English, the consecutive program blends knowledge from Korean studies, Japanese studies, Chinese studies, political science, economics, and history. Students can broaden their focus and understanding of local, national, regional, and global interconnections of and in East Asia.

Students with an interest in current issues who are considering work in an NGO, developmental cooperation, humanitarian organizations, or a think tank, might be interested in the English-language master’s program in Geographies of Global Inequalities at the Department of Earth Sciences. This program examines global inequalities within regional and transregional contexts as well as dependencies and interrelations of economies and societies. Project work is a primary aspect of this degree program. The numerous governmental and nongovernmental institutions and organizations in Berlin offer great potential for building up professional networks.

Projektarbeit ist dabei ein zentraler Aspekt. Staatliche und nichtstaatliche Einrichtungen sowie Organisationen am Wissenschaftsstandort Berlin ermöglichen dabei zahlreiche Vernetzungen.

Berlin University Alliance’s Unique Degree Programs

The Berlin University Alliance (BUA), the consortium of Freie Universität Berlin along with Technische Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin within the German Excellence Strategy, offers several unique degree programs that combine the strengths of the various institutions.

The bachelor’s degree program in Bioinformatics, for example, which Freie Universität offers in cooperation with Charité, provides students with an education in mathematics, statistics, and computer science as well as in molecular biology, biochemistry, and physiology. Students learn to analyze and understand medical and biological problems, using methods and findings from bioinformatics to address them.

Freie Universität, in cooperation with Humboldt-Universität, offers a Master of Arts in Global History. In this degree program students explore cross-border entanglements of regions and global structures. By focusing on comparisons, connections, and processes of global integration, the program helps students to understand the forces that have continuously shaped and restructured the world.

Another program offered through the Berlin University Alliance is the bachelor’s degree program in Media Informatics, in which students learn to develop digital media applications as well as how to analyze and understand their effects on people and societies. Freie Universität offers courses in communication sciences, and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Technische Universität holds the classes in mathematics, media technology, and computer science. A special feature is the large proportion of social science and content analysis.

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This article originally appeared in German in the Tagesspiegel newspaper supplement published by Freie Universität Berlin.